sketch show

Tomoaki Marubashi’s new works, collectively titled “Sketch Show” are pervaded with a feeling of stifling narratives. Each of the young women who appears in his works, for one reason or another, heads toward a specific point and have their eyes focused on something in the distance. Their motivations, actions and themes, which have all been suspended inside the works, begin to rapidly bubble up within the viewers minds. But it then dawns on the viewers that similar indelible images are latent within their own minds. Various narratives that had continued to ever expand within their minds up until that point then take a turn and rapidly begin to wither, as the works lead them to be in touch with their own specific feelings, memories or experiences. However, this perception does not last for long. Due to the sense of incongruity they feel, they begin to perceive from the faint light, the details, and the silhouettes in his works that the narratives are once again being silently released from becoming moored to any specific narratives. Once again the narratives begin to bubble up in the viewers minds. Thus, within the space created by Marubashi, the viewers end up having a sensation similar to drowning within his excessive narratives.

The narratives that Marubashi presents are not only confined within the images in his works. The tendency toward the Lolita complex that runs throughout his images adds a different perspective for viewers by reminding them of the narratives that the artist is caught up in. That perspective does not only secretively lead to ideas about the artist’s own sexuality, but also to Japanese forms of animation that overemphasize their characters transgender ambiances. In contrast to the aura that exists in the artist’s manifested images, his works definitely possess pervasive, offensive senses of pedophilia and impotency. Needless to say, the words papaphiliacs and impotents do not refer to specific individuals, but indicate that in the internal minds of men, there is something that occupies a firm place and lurks deep within their minds. In any case, the sense of guilt and despair toward that state further intricately distorts the expanding narratives found in Marubashi’s works.

The excessive narratives perceived from Marubashi’s works can remind us of the modest artistic attempts to revive the narrative element, which has recently become more conspicuous in the art world. Such narratives have been created by artists like Eija-Liisa Ahatila, who carefully traces after people in a world that mentally drives them into difficulties Kutlug Ataman, who possesses a meticulous vision toward the dark corners of sex and culture and Emmanuel Antile, who explores the depths of her own self being via her dreams. Their narratives may all be modest, but because of this, they are backed by their own acute feelings of not giving in an inch. Thus, they are the types of narratives that modestly but powerfully attempt to reconstruct the tabula rasa state of narratives that existed at the end of the 20th century, a time in which great narratives were encouraged to undergo serious reconsideration. Marubashi’s bubbling narratives might be bursting here and there so that they may achieve the potential of such narratives.